Season SIX OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread

I just did.

If I'm still alive in ten years, I'll say "I told you so." If I'm wrong, you can say it to me.

 

Seems fair

 

The difference though is capacity and bandwidth. It's easy and affordable to buy and sell a movie placed onto a disc that can store up to 50GB.

Downloaded and streamed media are never that same "physical file". Either it's a lossy MP3, or it's a video with even more compression and lossy audio. Until it becomes easy to transmit and store media that's upwards of 50GB each, there will be a place for physical media.

 

There is no real reason where audio is concerned not to use lossless formats, in fact there are now download sites where you can buy lossless downloads of jazz and classical that significantly exceed CD quality. With most mainstream recordings there is no significant market for it though, it is rather niche. Flac and similar files are bigger than MP3 but still quite small.

As for video, the next change will be 4k, which is already delivered over the internet exclusively, except for a few hard drives in pricey TVs. While there probably will be some 4k Blu Rays they will remain resolutely niche.

I can see as others have said a market existing in a niche for those who still want it maybe even more than 10 years from now, but my kids will never have houses stacked with silver discs like I do!

 

I've got a 50Mbps connection and it chokes on 4K video. They better hope there's a disc market out there for 4K because I don't think the infrastructure exists yet to handle it.

 

4K needs about 20Mbps to stream, so it sounds like you're getting throttled. What's your ISP?

 

It isn't just my ISP. My neighbor who has a different provider gets pretty much the same result.

 

Until the ISPs can get their s&%t together (haha), they will single-handedly prolong the need for physical media.

As a nation, we rate 26th worldwide in download speeds, bettered by some former Soviet Bloc countries, no less. http://www.netindex.com/download/allcountries/

Be very afraid if the Comcast/TWC merger goes through.

 

Even with streaming, I still have a love of physical media. Plus, I think streaming gives too much power to content providers.

 

I've said my piece I think but great discussion here going on

 

Streaming isn't the only digital solution. Downloading is another, more permanent, alternative to "discs".

EDIT: More accurately, purchasing digital content is a more permanent alternative to subscribing to it and hoping it doesn't get removed.

 

Even that's not perfect. There's still DRM to contend with, making downloads an unpleasant experience. You can get locked out of your video if you 'install' it on too many devices. That's not ownership like a disc is. Then there's the issue of everyone needing ## terabyte hard drives to store all that stuff.

 

That's true, but, inexplicable as it may be, that's what the public wants. They pushed the music industry kicking and screaming to MP3s. They may end up doing the same thing with studios and streaming.

 

.. plus every streaming costs energy on its way from the server to you. And I personally dont like that someone can protocol what, when and where I watch something via streaming (which is very likely the core interest of the industry, because physical media takes away the control over the content and hides the information who watches it in what circumstances from the content holder).

Also I doubt physical media will die out, because its in the human nature to collect.

 

I didn't feel like dealing with a physical copy of Madden NFL '15 for the PS4 this year, so I bought digital. With pre-loading and installation, the game would be loaded, installed and ready to go come Tuesday at 12:01AM. I figured "what could go wrong?"

http://www.vg247.com/2014/08/24/psn-ddos-hacked-battle-net-lizardsquad/

So, with PlayStation Network already down tomorrow for maintenance, I likely won't get to play the game until late in the day Tuesday or early Wednesday.

 

Remember "ApocalyPS3" a few years ago? After PSN was hacked and shut down, online and many downloaded games were unplayable for weeks.

 

Yep. This is why I won't trust the digital infrastructure to be my primary way of accessing entertainment for the foreseeable future. If it wasn't for other devices, this issue with PSN would block me from accessing any of the streaming services.

 

There are certainly technical issues to be overcome, I lost my Internet connection the other week while in the middle of an old episode of Doctor Who on Netflix, I had to go downstairs and get the DVD! (#firstworldproblems I know! )

Still, a lot of these will likely be overcome with time. Currently digital distribution is still fairly new. Compared to the early days of many other tech revolutions it is doing OK.

Just ten years ago I remember upgrading to a 512kbps ADSL connection from my dial-in modem. Give it another 10 years.

Technologies that are likely to be mainstream then are 10Gbps wired and wireless internet technologies, 2TB MicroSD cards, multi-terabyte SSDs and some other stuff still in prototype form. It is also likely that pretty much everything will connect to the Net out of the box (and yes, I dont want a net-connected fridge either, I know when I need sodding milk).

I got two new Blus in the post today, Snatch and American History X, both favourites of mine I'm glad to "own" in HD. But one of the reasons prices have dropped so far on Blu Ray (these were 2 for £10) is that not many people are buying them. Wherever we get to (and heck, there probably will be some people still buying Blus in ten years) we have already gotten on the train.

 

After finishing The X Files last week, I'm back to TNG trying to finish Season 6 on blu ray. Watched Ship in a Bottle and Aquiel last night. The first episode is as great as always, even though I'm always a little confused by the end. So they put Moriarity in a holodeck of a holodeck or was it just one holodeck?

As for Aquiel, there was actually a time when I defended this episode, but yeah it's really boring, and in terms of Geordi and relationships go, Booby Trap did it better. I did think the Dog was cute, before she turned into a shapeshifting Killer.

The HD on both these episodes are as great as always, especially the planetary shots in Ship of a Bottle.

 

That's what I love about that episode. Moriarty believe's he is in the real world, but he's actually just in a simulation (no nesting at this point).

I'd argue he's not even in a holodeck. It's a completely virtual simulation, since Moriarty, the Countess and their environments are all virtual to begin with, so there's no need for any actual physical simulations.